Josh Morrissey scored, but it wasn't enough, as the Jets fall 2-1 to Vegas to end the 2017-18 season Full Story
The Winnipeg Jets’ magical playoff run has come to a sudden end.
The Vegas Golden Knights defeated the Jets 2-1 in Game 5 to win the Western Conference Final four games to one on Sunday at Bell MTS Place. The Jets lost the final four games of the series.
“We had a great opportunity and that team, it was their time,” Jets captain Blake Wheeler said.
“They made it really tough for us. We had to work for everything we got and even when we broke them down, we couldn’t seem to ever gain the type of momentum we needed to get this thing on our terms.”
READ MORE: Vegas-Winnipeg fan friction as Jets take on Knights in Game 4
Alex Tuch and Winnipeg’s Ryan Reaves scored goals for the Knights in the clincher as they opened the scoring for the fourth consecutive game.
WATCH: ‘Very difficult to find that positive feeling’: Maurice on Jets’ loss
Josh Morrissey had the only goal for the Jets in the loss. The Knights held the Jets to just six goals combined over the last four games of the series.
“Obviously, I’m frustrated with myself because I couldn’t score,” Patrik Laine said. “I couldn’t help the team to win with my abilities, but there’s always next year.”
The Jets’ power play failed on all four opportunities in Game 5 while the Golden Knights were 0 for 2 on the man advantage.
“Once they got the lead, they did a good job of kinda almost playing a trapping game and trying to force us to do too much ourselves,” Paul Stastny said. “And sometimes we got in trouble, one guy trying to go through five guys, and that never works.”
READ MORE: Vegas anthem singer gives nod to Winnipeg Jets fans during ‘O Canada’
The Jets didn’t even have a lead in any of the contests after their Game 1 victory.
“Every game was tight,” Mark Scheifele said. “Every game was a matter of inches almost. They capitalized when they needed the chance. It just sucks.”
The shots were dead even in the Game 5 clincher as both teams registered 32 shots. Connor Hellebuyck made 30 stops for the Jets.
“I still think we did things right,” Hellebuyck said. “We got our chances and luck was on their side definitely. I’ve never seen anything like it. Even their two goals tonight were two tips. I don’t know. It’s tough to swallow.”
But the Jets just didn’t look like the same team that eliminated the Nashville Predators and it’s pretty clear the grueling seven-game series took its toll on the team. While he wasn’t making excuses, head coach Paul Maurice admitted they weren’t as sharp in the conference final.
“There were things that didn’t happen for us in this series,” Maurice said. “That I think, some of it was mental, but it was the physical fatigue caused by having to spend as much as we spent to get here.”
The expansion Golden Knights advance to the Stanley Cup final in their first year of existence.
WATCH: Winnipeg Jets Post Game Reaction
RELATED: Winnipeg Jets on the ropes after 3rd straight loss to Vegas
For the fourth straight game, Vegas opened the scoring. Just past the five-minute mark, Morrissey turned over the puck in his own zone. Ryan Carpenter immediately spotted Tuch and he lifted the puck over the shoulder of Hellebuyck and the Knights once again had the lead.
With just 2:46 left in the first Bryan Little won the face-off in the Golden Knights’ zone and Morrissey blasted the one-timer past Marc-Andre Fleury for his first goal of the playoffs. It was 1-1 after one period and the shots were 13-8 in favour of Winnipeg.
WATCH: Vegas Golden Knights discuss journey to Stanley Cup Final
The Golden Knights regained the lead with a little under seven minutes left in the middle frame. Reaves tipped in the point shot for his first goal of the post-season. Luca Sbisa and Tomas Nosek picked up the assists and it was 2-1 for Vegas after 40 minutes.
Neither team scored in the final frame as the Golden Knights clinched their third series victory of the playoffs.
RELATED: Winnipeg Jets coach Paul Maurice likes goaltender Connor Hellebuyck’s swagger
The Jets made three lineup changes from their Game 4 loss. Joel Armia returned after sitting out Game 4, while Dmitry Kulikov and Joe Morrow both made their first appearances of the series. Andrew Copp, Toby Enstrom and Ben Chiarot were all scratched.
WATCH: Gallant credits break between series as advantage over Winnipeg
WINNIPEG – A special spring can turn sour in a moment’s notice. Six days after leading the Western Conference final 1-0, the Winnipeg Jets are dealing with the reality that they’ll be watching an expansion team play for the Stanley Cup.
It could have been them.
“Pretty empty,” said Blake Wheeler. “Emotionless.”
“It’s hard to believe it’s all over,” said Mathieu Perreault. “We really thought we were going to do it this year.”
“[I feel like] [expletive], pretty much,” said Patrik Laine.
It’s a feeling felt throughout a city that celebrated the end of a long winter by filling the streets for each home playoff game. Businesses showed their support with “Go Jets Go!” signs in windows. More than one local car dealer filled his lot with exclusively white vehicles to match the whiteout inside the Bell MTS Place.
And on a gorgeous Sunday afternoon, the power went out.
Not literally, mind you, but emotionally. Spiritually. The Jets scored more goals this season than all but one team and then ran into a brick wall named Marc-Andre Fleury. They only put six pucks behind the Vegas Golden Knights goalie over the final four games – scoring just once while playing for their lives in Game 5.
“It was their time,” said Wheeler. “They’re playing really well and you have to give them all the credit. Typically in a seven-game series the better teams wins. Coming into it, I thought we had the best team – obviously I’m a little bit biased standing in this room. Felt we had a great opportunity and that team, you know, it was their time.
“They made it really tough for us, we had to work for everything we got and even when we broke them down we couldn’t seem to ever gain the type of momentum we needed to get this thing on our terms.”
They never led after the final buzzer sounded on Game 1. The list of players who failed to score a goal in this series will tell you a lot about why we’re already talking about the end of the best Jets season in history. It includes Wheeler, Perreault, Paul Stastny, Nikolaj Ehlers and Bryan Little, to name but a few.
It’s possible that youth eventually caught up to the Jets when the pressure got ratcheted and the amount of open ice shrunk.
Ehlers and Kyle Connor both had fantastic regular seasons but didn’t make much of an impact in the playoffs. Laine scored two power-play goals against Vegas but wasn’t nearly the same threat we’ve seen previously.
The 20-year-old Finn put just one shot on target in Sunday’s 2-1 loss, bemoaning a couple others he fired high or wide.
“Just for me, I couldn’t shoot,” said Laine. “I don’t know what was wrong with that, I had a lot of good chances, just couldn’t hit the puck or the net. That’s my responsibility to be able to shoot, and I couldn’t do that today.”
They also ran into a team that seems to have destiny on its side.
The winning goal came off a double tip and belonged to Ryan Reaves, one of Winnipeg’s own sons who was scoring for just the second time in his 42nd career playoff game. The stick he used to score it is now heading to the Hockey Hall of Fame.
Fleury casually posted an eye-popping .938 save percentage in this series, doing his best work in Games 3 and 4 at T-Mobile Arena where the Jets controlled a huge portion of the play.
Winnipeg had 33 high-danger chances combined in those games. Back home Sunday and playing to keep the dream alive, they managed just eight of those against a much stingier Golden Knights attack.
The most dangerous saw Perreault get open in the slot and miss Little’s pass entirely. From the play-by-play booth, Jim Hughson bellowed “swing and miss!”
That sums up the opportunity Winnipeg let slip away here. The Jets were trying to end a city’s championship drought in hockey that stretches back to the WHA days, and a country’s Stanley Cup drought that now sits at 25 years.
A quarter-freaking-century.
Meanwhile, the Golden Knights might lift that picturesque trophy before their first birthday.
“We tried so hard, too, left it all out there,” said Perreault. “It’s so disappointing when you put so much effort into it and the result’s just not there. It’s tough to swallow.”
The Jets were in no mood to make excuses in the minutes after the curtain fell, but they undoubtedly had difficulty getting back to their top level after an epic seven-game series with Nashville in the second round. Fatigue is a fact of life when you’re playing your 99th game of the season.
Vegas managed a slightly easier road to this point by sweeping Los Angeles in Round 1 and dispatching San Jose in six games in Round 2.
“A lot of the plays did not come off our stick the way they had prior to it, and it wasn’t a matter of tightness. Our hands felt it,” said Jets coach Paul Maurice. “Your brain goes a little slower, it gets off your stick a little quicker, your reads are a little slower. But the will was still there.
“There were things that didn’t happen for us this series. Some of it was mental, but it was the physical fatigue caused by having to spend as much as we spent to get here.”
This Stanley Cup final will be unlike anything we’ve ever seen. The Golden Misfits against a team with a gripping redemption story – either Steven Stamkos’s Tampa Bay Lightning or Alex Ovechkin’s Washington Capitals.
It’s going to be impossible for Winnipeg to watch.
On a 26-degree afternoon where goals were nowhere to be found, the hockey season came to an end for a lot of people here. It’s over.
